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Vicki Estes: Unwrapping the last gifts of this Christmas

Just when I thought the last gift was opened ...

Tearing down the glitter-covered decorations and twinkling lights after the holidays reminds me of the ride home from an annual vacation. All the excitement and joy leading up to and during the trip culminates in a reality check on the long journey home. Back to the grind, the mundane routine, the sometimes hum-ho existence of daily life.

That sounds a bit dramatic, I know. I’m approaching my 50th year of life and each day that passes means fewer lie ahead. Another year gone and with it more memories and days. I’d like to rewind and take copious notes to share with my younger self. Alas, do-overs did not appear in my stocking or under the tree this year.

Before plunging into 2014, I dismantled the Christmas tree intent on finding lasting gifts, not neatly wrapped in a box but rather tugged from childhood memories. This year it became a search for reminders of what is truly important.

Removing the handmade ornaments, each designed with varying colors of shimmering beads and a grandmother’s love, allowed me to reflect on the light of her soul that shines as though she’s still with us. Never content to allow others to be alone on a holiday, she may not have coined the term “open-door policy” but she lived its true meaning. Her home became everyone’s home, or at least it seemed for holidays and when someone simply needed a place to crash.

All were welcome at Busia’s (Polish grandmother). As long as you could help peel a potato or move folding chairs and tables, you were in. You earned a seat at the adult dining table if you could sing along with Mitch Miller and the Sing-Along Gang. For those of you born after the demise of vinyl records, you can find vintage Mitch on YouTube.

Gift No. 1: Open my heart and home for others in 2014. People who care about me don’t care whether my housekeeping skills would pass a white-glove test.

I then packed away the ornaments my siblings and I made when we were young enough to wear footed pajamas without sarcastic commentary from friends. The lopsided, asymmetrical ornaments represent many Saturday nights around a Formica-topped kitchen table, poking fun of each other’s creations. Anytime four kids have access to glue, Styrofoam balls, glitter, plastic beads and straight pins, mischief and imagination follow. One particular ornament screams of brotherly sabotage. It’s round with colorful ribbon strands creating four squares. Well aware that I wasn’t a genius with numbers, I surmise my brothers prodded me to spell my name in the four empty spaces of the ornament. The result? V I C K.

Gift No. 2: Allow family to keep me grounded.

The faux blue spruce stood bare naked, stripped of the pomp and circumstance of ornaments. It seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, stretching its wire branches, enjoying its last hurrah until next year.

As I reached to remove the main top branch, something darted from the base of the tree. I screamed. Everyone came running, afraid I had impaled myself on a wire branch.

It was a mouse. For 20 minutes it scurried about the room trying to escape the ear-piercing screams of two women, the watchful eye of a dog and a man with a broomstick handle.